Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Haiti Band-Aid

By most accounts, emergency medical supplies aren't getting to the earthquake victims even eight-days after the earthquake. Medical supplies have been flown into Haiti but they sit uncrated at the airport.

6 comments:

Ann da sista
said...

It's like Iniki - they've got to focus on quickly getting things open and organized - like clearing out the airport for landings and finding a system for distribution of stuff. It infuriated me when Brian Williams on NBC's evening news arrived in Haiti 24 hours after the earthquake and shared his hardship of having to sleep on the plane on the airstrip because it was the only "safe" place. In my opinion, he was taking up valuable airstrip space that should have been used to get medical equipment and the injured in and out of the country. They need to get construction equipment in to get those buildings down so the aftershocks don't do more damage. Breaks my heart!

Ann- it's almost a joke except thousands are dying without the medicine. Sanjay Gupta, the guy who turned down the Surgeon General's position, who works for CNN, related how a team of doctors were pulled from their station because of security concerns. They wanted to stay put irregardless, and the next day they found out that the fears were unfounded. One of the doctors told Sanjay, "I have never before been ashamed to be a Belgium." These doctors flew in from Europe and they don't have surgical gloves all the while medical supplies sit uncrated at the airport. They must be pissed at the lack of organization. Especially so because time is so critical at this stage.

Did you hear about how the Israelis have been the most efficient and effective in getting out there, setting up and helping everybody right away? It's really embarrassing that we weren't able to get organized faster.